NELSON W. TAYLOR LECTURE IN MATERIALS: Frontiers in Glass Science and Technology

2023 Keynote Speaker

Arun Varshneya, President of Saxon Glass Technologies, Inc. of Alfred NY and Professor emeritus of glass science & engineering, Alfred University

“Technical glass products in the service of humans”

Technical glass products have brought much comforts to human living over the several millennia. Glass windows, lenses, light bulbs, communication optical fibers, and semiconducting glasses are just a few notables. Contribution of glass as a material to the service of humans was recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in its declaration of 2022 as the International Year of Glass. In this presentation, we continue that celebration by briefly reviewing three of the many topics associated with the use of glass products in the service of humans: strength, healthcare, and sustainability.

Biography

Arun Varshneya, Ph.D., is the president of Saxon Glass Technologies, Inc. in Alfred, New York, and a professor emeritus of glass science and engineering at Alfred University.

Varshneya’s early education was in Agra, India. In 1962, he joined the Department of Glass Technology at Sheffield University, United Kingdom, where he received his bachelor of science (technology) degree with honors in glass technology. He then migrated to the United States to get his master of science degree and his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.

He worked at the Ford Scientific Laboratories and the GE Lighting Business Group before joining Alfred University in 1982 as a professor—eventually retiring after thirty years. In 1996, Varshneya co-founded his entrepreneurship company Saxon Glass Technologies, Inc. The company delivers chemical strengthening service particularly for pharma glass packaging and pioneered the strengthening of cell phone display glass covers. Saxon Glass Technologies’ flagship product is the strengthened borosilicate glass cartridge in autoinjectors for life-threatening situations.

in professional circles, Varshneya is widely known and respected as a glass engineering science educator and researcher. He taught nearly all of the required glass curriculum courses at Alfred University, including the engineering capstone which includes business basics for all ceramic/glass engineers. He is most admired for the textbook he authored, Fundamentals of Inorganic Glasses (currently third edition) thus earning him the nickname “Glass Guru.” Varshneya is the inventor of twelve patents, and he is the author/co-author of nearly 170 publications. Due to his extensive knowledge of glass science and technology, he was invited to write a thirteen page article on industrial glass for the Encyclopedia Britannica. Varshneya is an honorary fellow of the Society of Glass Technology, a distinguished life member of the American Ceramic Society, and a recipient of the President’s Award of the International Commission on Glass. In September 2022, he was unanimously elected to be the 58th president of the Society of Glass Technology.

Shadi Nazarian, Associate professor, Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Penn State

“Concrete glass frontiers”

The impact of technological evolution and advances in material science and engineering can be communicated with wide audiences using the expressive language of the arts and architecture. In this presentation honoring Prof. Arun Varshneya, I will share the development of a functionally graded material (FGM) that enables seamless and graded transitional interface between glass and concrete. The developed technology enables construction of a wall that gradually transitions along its surface from 100% geopolymer-based concrete to an area of 100% transparent glass; or a wall that transitions through its thickness from 100% structural geopolymer concrete to include a volume of foamed glass with increased insulative qualities. The developed technology enables the construction industry to optimize building performance with less embodied and operational energy and to promote the use of recycled materials and alternative binders. The presentation also provides perspective on future work which will use AI for synthesis of data, and development of algorithms to accomplish precise design and distribution of FGM using automated additive manufacturing.

Biography

Shadi Nazarian is an associate research professor of architecture at Penn State, founder and director of the Transitional Material Interface Laboratory, and co-founder of the Additive Construction Lab.

Nazarian’s catalytic, interdisciplinary research with her Materials Research Institute colleagues made it possible for graded transitional interface between structural geopolymer mortar and glass which has great architectural potential on Earth and beyond—where impermeable structures are needed.

Her team has earned numerous awards for their contributions for the advancement of 3D concrete printing technologies, minimizing embodied and operational energy, optimizing performance, and precise application of engineered materials in the NASA 3D-printed Habitat Challenge. Their sustainable, locally sourced, functionally graded materials are used in additive construction of affordable housing, e.g., in remote areas of rural Alaska—an upcoming project funded by HUD.

Nazarian holds a post-professional degree in architecture from Cornell University, and professional degrees in architecture and environmental design from the University of Minnesota.

Seong Kim, Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering, Penn State

“Glass Surface”

Wolfgang Pauli, an eminent physicist, said “God made the bulk; the surface was invented by the devil.” This quote depicts how drastically the surface property of a solid can differ from the bulk property. Glass is a non-equilibrium solid material – this means that its structure is not a state function, but a path function. In other words, its properties cannot be fully described or predicted with its composition, temperature, and pressure; they vary depending on the history such as cooling rate from the melt or annealing temperature. This adds a great deal of complexity in structure-property relationships of bulk glass. When it comes to surface properties, it is even more complicated because glass surface is exposed to humid air and often touched by other physical objects. In this lecture honoring Prof. Arun Varshneya who greatly contributed to making glass stronger, I will discuss our new understanding on how “glass surface” makes it weaker.

Biography

Dr. Kim’s career path has been unconventional, but quite innovative and impactful. His educational background was physical chemistry; but he now teaches and works in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Penn State. His research during his PhD and postdoctoral works at Northwestern University and University of California, Berkeley, focused on ultra-high vacuum surface science studies related to heterogeneous catalysis; however, his current research at Penn State explores different frontiers – tribology (a subject perhaps more known in mechanical engineering), silicate glass (usually considered in materials science disciplines), and plant cell walls (also called lignocellulose biomass by engineers). The crux of these seemingly disparate programs is a fundamental understanding of surface science and characterization principles and the application of those principles. In doing so, he has questioned assumptions that others have taken for granted in each field, proposed new alternative hypotheses, listened to criticisms, and improved the proposed theories. Through these efforts, his team has established fundamental knowledge in molecular tribology, glass surface science, and biological materials, which is critically needed for engineering applications.

John Mauro, National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Inventors, Dorothy Pate Enright Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Associate Head for Graduate Education, and Chair, Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State

“Throwing stones in glass houses”

Glass is undoubtedly one of the most important materials enabling the development of modern civilization. Despite many recent advances in glass science and technology, glass still breaks. In this presentation, I will review various strategies for strengthening glass products and provide perspective on future opportunities for improvement.

Biography

John C. Mauro, Ph.D., is the Dorothy Pate Enright Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and the associate head for graduate education in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State.

In 2001, Mauro earned his bachelor of science degree in glass engineering science in 2001 and his bachelor of arts degree in computer science, and in 2006, his Ph.D. in glass science—all from Alfred University.

Mauro joined Corning Incorporated in 1999 and served in multiple roles during his time there, including senior research manager of the glass research department, where he led a group of fifteen scientists and technicians in the development of new glass and glass-ceramic products. Mauro joined the faculty at Penn State in 2017, and he is a world-recognized expert in fundamental and applied glass science, statistical mechanics, computational and condensed matter physics, thermodynamics, and the topology of disordered networks.

Mauro is the inventor/co-inventor of several new glass compositions for Corning, including Corning Gorilla® Glass products. John is a pioneer in the use of physics-based and machine learning models for the design of new glassy materials. He is the inventor of new models for supercooled liquid and glass viscosity, glass structure and topology, relaxation behavior, and thermal and mechanical properties. He is co-author of Fundamentals of Inorganic Glasses, third edition (Elsevier, 2019), which is the definitive textbook on glass science and technology. Also, Mauro is the author of Materials Kinetics: Transport and Rate Phenomena (Elsevier, 2021), the most comprehensive textbook on kinetic phenomena in materials science.

In 2006, he was awarded the N.J. Kreidl Award from the American Ceramic Society, Glass and Optical Materials Division. In 2010, Penn State and the International Commission on Glass (ICG) awarded him the W.A. Weyl International Glass Science Award. In 2011, Mauro received the V. Gottardi Prize from the ICG, and in 2012 he was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Sir Alastair Pilkington Award from the Society of Glass Technology. In 2013, Mauro was awarded the S. Donald Stookey Award for Exploratory Research from Corning Incorporated. In 2015, he became a fellow of the American Ceramic Society and was recipient of the R.M. Fulrath Award. In the same year, he was also awarded the W.H. Zachariasen Award from the Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids. In 2016, the National Institute of Ceramic Engineers (NICE) selected Mauro as the winner of the Karl Schwartzwalder Professional Achievement in Ceramic Engineering (PACE) Award. He is also the winner of Corning’s Ethnically Diverse Group of Employees (EDGE) Excellence Award (2016) for promoting diversity at Corning. In 2019, Mauro was elected as a fellow of the Society of Glass Technology, and was the recipient of the Faculty of the Year Award in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State. Most recently, he is the recipient of the Paul F. Robertson Award for Earth and Mineral Sciences Research Breakthrough of the Year (2020), the Faculty Scholar Medal from Penn State (2021), the Wilson Award for Excellence in Teaching (2022), the Fiat Lux Award from Alfred University (2022), and the Wulff Lectureship from MIT (2022).

Mauro is the author of over 340 peer-reviewed publications, and he has given over 200 presentations at international conferences and seminars. His publications have been cited over 16,000 times, with an h-index of 57. Mauro has 72 granted U.S. patents and several additional patents pending. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society. Mauro is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Inventors.

Nelson W. Taylor Awardees

* Nobel Laureate

2022 Michael Rubinstein
2020 Cato T. Laurencin
2019 Giulia Galli
2018 Ramamoorthy Ramesh
2017 Jennifer Lewis
2016 Shuji Nakamura*
2015 Thomas Kelly
2013 P. M. Ajayan
2012 Subra Suresh
2010 Chad A. Mirkin
2009 Tobin J. Marks
2008 John B. Goodenough*
2007 Timothy P. Lodge
2006 Lawrence L. Kazmerski
2005 Marvin L. Cohen
2004 Robert S. Langer
2003 Charles M. Lieber
2001 George Craford
1999 John Price Hirth
1998 Alan G. MacDiarmid*
1997 Larry L. Hench
1995 Thomas W. Eagar
1994 Gerhard Wagner
1993 Richard E. Smalley*
1991 Richard Balzhiser
1990 Mats Hillert
1989 Sir Samual Edwards
1988 Makoto Kikuchi
1987 David W. Johnson, Jr.
1986 Paul B. Weisz
1985 Julian Szekely
1984 Pierre-Gilles de Gennes*
1983 William O. Baker
1982 W. Dave Kingery
1981 Irving Wender
1980 Morris Cohen
1979 Turner Alfrey, Jr.
1978 Edward Teller
1977 Elburt E. Osborn
1976 John A. Duffie
1975 Cyril Smith
1974 Herman Mark
1973 Linus Pauling*
1972 Gene Haertling
1971 Clarence Zener
1970 John Saylor
1970 Horst Scholze